As integrated circuit (IC) fabrication technology improves, manufacturers are able to integrate additional functionality onto a single silicon substrate. As the number of these functionalities increases, however, so does the number of components on a single IC chip. Additional components add additional signal switching, in turn, generating more heat. The additional heat may damage an IC chip by, for example, thermal expansion. Also, the additional heat may limit usage locations and/or applications of a computing device that includes such chips. For example, a portable computing device may solely rely on battery power. Hence, as additional functionality is integrated into portable computing devices, the need to reduce power consumption becomes increasingly important, for example, to maintain battery power for an extended period of time. Non-portable computing systems also face cooling and power generation issues as their IC components use more power and generate more heat.
To improve performance, some processors may use a “turbo” mode. For example, turbo mode may allow a processor to increase the supply voltage and frequency up to a pre-defined Thermal Design Power (TDP) limit, for example due to workload demands. However, the TDP limit may be set based on steady state conditions, which result in latency even when the TDP limit may be exceeded without causing thermal emergencies. Other turbo techniques may make use of dynamic characteristics of cooling system. These dynamic characteristics of TDP limit may be significantly variable from one processor to the next processor. This may be unacceptable to equipment manufacturers or end users.